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A major clash is brewing between the news industry and Google over the tech giant’s new AI-powered search features. The News/Media Alliance, representing prominent US news publishers, has accused Google of essentially ‘theft’ by using their content without adequate compensation or traffic referral. The core of the dispute lies in Google’s AI-generated summaries, which replace traditional search results with a concise answer and a list of related links. Publishers fear this format significantly reduces crucial referral traffic to their websites, impacting revenue streams. Danielle Coffey, CEO of the News/Media Alliance, voiced strong disapproval, asserting that Google is appropriating content without providing a fair return. Internal documents from Google’s antitrust trial further fuel the controversy, revealing a conscious decision not to seek permission from publishers before incorporating their work into AI search functionalities. Publishers are faced with an all-or-nothing choice: either remain indexed and risk their content being used in AI summaries, or opt-out entirely from Google search results. Google maintains that offering granular control over feature inclusion would be excessively complicated. This escalating conflict underscores the fundamental tension between news organizations striving to protect their intellectual property and revenue models, and tech behemoths integrating AI into their core services.